:Swiss Dig World's Longest Tunnel
Discussion
Jimbeaux said:
Technically amazing.But there was a spate of utter disasters in some of the other long Swiss tunnels a few years ago. Fire breaks out. Chemical tankers igniting. Dozens of cars "fused" together. No where to run/drive/hide. No oxygen. Roof collapse. Total nightmare. I hope they have designed in some fire prevention and other mitigation systems.
128 people still missing 24 hrs after fire in Swiss tunnel :-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-80665/128-...
Vehicles "fused" together in intense tunnel fire :-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/26/jonhen...
Sobering stuff.
Carparticus said:
Jimbeaux said:
Technically amazing.But there was a spate of utter disasters in some of the other long Swiss tunnels a few years ago. Fire breaks out. Chemical tankers igniting. Dozens of cars "fused" together. No where to run/drive/hide. No oxygen. Roof collapse. Total nightmare. I hope they have designed in some fire prevention and other mitigation systems.
128 people still missing 24 hrs after fire in Swiss tunnel :-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-80665/128-...
Vehicles "fused" together in intense tunnel fire :-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/26/jonhen...
Sobering stuff.
JMGS4 said:
Carparticus said:
But there was a spate of utter disasters in some of the other long Swiss tunnels a few years ago
It's a train tunnel, mind you they want to travel at up tp 270kph in each direction so if 1 comes off the rails it'd be an almighty bang!!!Its a train tunnel thats approx 50% longer than the Eurotunnel, which is fairly amazing in itself. But with trains running at 270kph its more than 3 times the speed, so yes, any accidents are going to be messy.
As far as I can figure out, the design is similar to Eurotunnel in that theres two main single track tunnels linked by a service/safety tunnel. In total they have bored through nearly 100 miles or rock !
Some interesting statistics here :-
http://www.ritchiewiki.com/wiki/index.php/Gotthard...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel
They keep talking about this being for freight and taking the load off the motorways (well it would help if they opened the northbound St Gotthard tunnel frankly, rather than shove everything down the southbound tunnel in single file, but anyway), are they planning on putting trucks on the back of a train, eg EuroTunnel style?
BTW, bit of history for you about St Gotthard (if you don't already know), and hell might as well learn something on PH today:
The St Gotthard passes are all secondary to the gorge that run's just north of Andermatt. Getting over the mountains was relatively easy, the difficult bit is (was) the gorge to the north of Andermatt.
So back in the 1100, as myth goes, the people of Andermatt did a deal with the devil. In return for the soul of the first to cross the bridge, the devil would build them a bridge through the gorge. When it came time for payment, the people of Andermatt wriggled a bit, and went through the wording of the contract. "First soul" it said, so they sent a goat over. The devil had assumed "first soul of a human".
He was mighty pissed, picked up a big 140 ton rock (iirc) and went to throw it at the bridge. A local old lady somehow convinced him not to, and job done.
Now the modern myth is that during the construction of the St Gotthard Road Tunnel, they had to move the rock as it was directly over where they wanted to tunnel. So they shifted it over a bit. The devil being a bit upset, then caused the car accident in 2001 where 10 people died.
Right, hands up who has had a bj in St Gotthard?
BTW, bit of history for you about St Gotthard (if you don't already know), and hell might as well learn something on PH today:
The St Gotthard passes are all secondary to the gorge that run's just north of Andermatt. Getting over the mountains was relatively easy, the difficult bit is (was) the gorge to the north of Andermatt.
So back in the 1100, as myth goes, the people of Andermatt did a deal with the devil. In return for the soul of the first to cross the bridge, the devil would build them a bridge through the gorge. When it came time for payment, the people of Andermatt wriggled a bit, and went through the wording of the contract. "First soul" it said, so they sent a goat over. The devil had assumed "first soul of a human".
He was mighty pissed, picked up a big 140 ton rock (iirc) and went to throw it at the bridge. A local old lady somehow convinced him not to, and job done.
Now the modern myth is that during the construction of the St Gotthard Road Tunnel, they had to move the rock as it was directly over where they wanted to tunnel. So they shifted it over a bit. The devil being a bit upset, then caused the car accident in 2001 where 10 people died.
Right, hands up who has had a bj in St Gotthard?
Truely incredible, amazing how such a project can be viable.
This website really interesting, shows other works:
http://www.yourdiscovery.com/machines_and_engineer...
This website really interesting, shows other works:
http://www.yourdiscovery.com/machines_and_engineer...
tinman0 said:
He was mighty pissed, picked up his big 140 ton rocks (iirc) and went to throw them at the bridge. A local lady persuaded him suggestively that it would be one hell of a waste .. and convinced him not to, and job done. Turns out she was founder of the alpine bukkake club.
Right, hands up who has had a bj in St Gotthard?
Carparticus said:
Jimbeaux said:
Technically amazing.But there was a spate of utter disasters in some of the other long Swiss tunnels a few years ago. Fire breaks out. Chemical tankers igniting. Dozens of cars "fused" together. No where to run/drive/hide. No oxygen. Roof collapse. Total nightmare. I hope they have designed in some fire prevention and other mitigation systems.
128 people still missing 24 hrs after fire in Swiss tunnel :-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-80665/128-...
Vehicles "fused" together in intense tunnel fire :-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/26/jonhen...
Sobering stuff.
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